The slumping Alberta economy means a hit to the housing rental market for Airdrie property firms.

Marni Marr, the President of Private Equity Group says, while her company hasn't seen much change in the occupancy rate for their homes, they have had to dramatically drop prices to keep it that way.

"We've kept pretty much full occupancy but the trouble for us, the great things for tenants, is that rents have decreased probably 15 to 20 per cent over what they were the year previous."  Marr says "we've given huge rent decreases to people and that's how we're managing to keep renters or managing to rent anything that does go vacant."

Although Alberta's oil patch is showing signs of slight improvement, Marr thinks it will take some time to trickle down to the rental market.

Marr says, "What happened there is that all kinds of people moved away from Alberta, and we'd need a pretty significant increase in the oil patch for people to move back. When the population declines, the need for rentals also declines."  

Marr believes that we are likley six months to a year away from people moving back to Alberta for oil jobs.  

If you're looking for a place to rent, Airdrie is a great place to start according to Marr.  "The reason so many people want to live in Airdrie is because people want their kids in schools in Airdrie and they want the lifestyle in Airdrie.  We're not finding people moving to Airdrie to save money but because they like the lifestyle."

Marr's company, Private Equity Group, has 40 rental properties in Airdrie.